


My Only Catch

by poorly_animated



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Kurapika won’t let himself be loved, Leorio POV, M/M, Pining, Slightly angsty fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:00:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26749885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poorly_animated/pseuds/poorly_animated
Summary: “They called me a hunter, but you were the only thing I chased.”
Relationships: Kurapika/Leorio Paladiknight
Comments: 7
Kudos: 49





	My Only Catch

We were the only ones still awake, and I wanted to know what you’d been reading all day. You seemed surprised that I asked. Charming. The current book was a classic in a dead language. I insisted on having your explanation, just to hear your voice. You asked me to sit down and I got to hear you speak softly, so close to me, and when you looked right at me and smiled as you closed the book I wanted to kiss you. It was my fault we were stuck, after all, but you still smiled at me and I just looked at your mouth and thought about what it might be like. I picked up the book you’d just finished and asked if we could share the light. You actually moved closer. “Oh, these are by my favorite poet,” you whispered, and I asked if I could read some of it out loud. I still don’t know why that struck me as the thing to do but that adorable surprised look on your face was reason enough. After a few poems you gathered the blankets you’d been sleeping on and pulled them around us. I think I stopped breathing. You yawned and told me to do the rest. In the middle of a poem on a dog-eared page, you fell asleep on my shoulder. 

On the island, I talked to you as much as you would let me. We were sitting in a tree one night when you finally told me the story of how you learned to identify the constellations. It was the first thing you ever told me about your life. I wanted to know so much more but I couldn’t interrupt you, not while you were pointing up at that unfamiliar sky and making it fit over us. You asked me what night had looked like from my childhood bed. Everything you say is a revelation. Another night, it was so cold you let me share your blanket. We were on the forest floor, tucked in the eroded cavern under an ancient root. You were restless. I asked if you needed me to move. That was when you told me about the nightmares, speaking so softly I could barely hear you. I touched your shoulder and you turned around and silently let me hug you, just put my arms around yours without expecting the gesture to be returned. When you turned around again I moved closer and you didn’t move away. 

Watching you is one of my favorite things. No matter what happens around you, you’re already responding to it by the time I see it. Your mind amazes me. I was so excited when I was able to impress you, the handful of times that I could. I saw your jaw drop when I first managed to open the doors and it made me feel like my body was on fire. When you left I figured there was nothing to do but tend to my own life. Forgetting you was impossible; the closer we got to the arranged date, the more I tried to call you. I knew you weren’t likely to pick up but god, when I finally heard your voice again I understood birdwatchers. Just waiting. Earning only the glimpse of a feather. I sat next to you on the couch and I was almost scared of the person you’d become, but you smiled at me and I just wanted to hold your hand, do anything to make you smile again. 

I was so worried about you. I wish I could’ve done more to help but pressing the compress to your forehead was all there was to do. Your sleep didn’t seem restful. I felt like a fool for letting you walk away. The only time you called me, I nearly fell off my balcony. You laughed when I screamed your name into the phone and the sound intoxicated me. Hearing your voice was the only birthday gift I wanted. We talked for an hour before you had to go, back to the job that took you so far away from me. On the voicemails, I tried not to ask questions. Others passed through my arms but none of them were nearly as enchanting as you. I knew you wouldn’t pick up but I had to keep trying. What if, in some impossible scenario, you needed me? I never asked if you saw me on the news. You probably did, but what I really want to know is whether you wanted to call me when you saw. Did it surprise you, hearing my voice as you turned on the radio? Or did you see it on television, catch sight of my face out of the corner of your eye and stop to watch? I stayed in the running because I hoped it might lure you out. They called me a hunter, but you were the only thing I chased. 

She asked me to stay and I asked her to find you. I thought I was dreaming when you called my name in the lobby, your beautiful voice ringing off the gaudy marble columns. You still wouldn’t give me your email, but I was closer to catching you than I’d been in months. The suit you wore made me want to take you dancing. I was sitting in that meeting watching you and imagining the ways I could earn your laughter. You’re always so serious around everyone else. It makes sense. I talked you into dinner and you kept walking with me long after the sun had set. You were watching our surroundings as you told me about what you’d been doing while I couldn’t see you. Your hands kept shaking. I finally let myself steady them and you looked at me and sank into my open arms. We went to your apartment and stayed up all night talking and then I was somehow so close I could smell your shampoo and I remembered that you always smell faintly of vanilla. You looked at me and we’d both had just enough to drink that I couldn’t help myself, I leaned in. Your eyes went so wide I thought I was falling into them. As our lips met you made the softest sound and then you were kissing me back and we were on our backs and then I really heard your voice for what felt like the first time. 

You were so cold in the morning. I didn’t realize until then what it meant to pursue you, that I might be able to catch up every so often but you would never let me have you. Walking home was lonelier than it had been in a long time. After the next meeting you pulled me aside and asked if I could do it again without asking you to stay with me. I wanted you so badly I would’ve done anything you wanted, and I think you knew it. That second time was so fast I felt cheated. Our lips barely touched. On the ship, you found me a few times and told me in a low voice that you needed me, and I could never imagine saying no to you. When you called me and just talked to me, exactly like we used to talk, I was so grateful. I asked if I could read you the poetry I’d been reading and I could hear you getting tense on the other end of the line. Before I could apologize you said: “You are a very good friend, Leorio. Please try to be realistic.” Did you really regret kissing me so much? Even when it hurt your voice was still the only thing I wanted to hear.

Against all odds, you were handed a tent and told to stay by my side. We barely spoke for the first few hours. I finally asked if we were still friends. “That’s all I ever wanted to be.” The only thing I caught was my own heart in my throat, trying to jump out and be with you. In the dark you woke up crying and shook me awake. You wouldn’t let me hold you, but you handed me a book and in your quietest voice asked if I would read it aloud. I couldn’t tell if you were looking at me with only a flashlight pointed at the page but I could hear you breathing and I was happy to know you were there. “You have such a calming voice,” you sighed, “I could listen to you all day.” That sleepy little murmur made me feel invincible. Each night we read to each other, always insisting the other was better at voicing poetics or ancient myths. You were letting me come closer. One night as you were setting up the tent I dropped the firewood and asked if we could talk. Your face closed up and you looked at the horizon but there was nowhere to run so you turned, stepping towards me and sitting just far enough away that I couldn’t reach your hands. I asked why you stopped touching me and you said I take everything too seriously. “I’m only serious about you,” a silly thing to say, but the truth as I understood it. Your eyes were stuck on the minuscule motions of unfamiliar bugs crawling across the dirt. “Please say something.” “There’s nothing to say.” 

The next day was so quiet I wondered if my voice would still come out when I tried to speak. I finally said something almost funny and you almost laughed. We were sitting under an enormous tree and I said it reminded me of that island and you looked away. I apologized. You asked why I had to talk so much and I apologized again, I’m just nervous, we’ve drifted off the edge of the map to a world that can only be described as unknown. I asked why it bothered you and you shrugged, tugging your knees to your chest. “I miss when you trusted me,” I didn’t mean to sound so cruel but I had to walk away so you wouldn’t see me cry. In the middle of another day you turned and asked why I had kissed you in the first place, a low and sad voice I hadn’t heard in over a year. It tripped me up, literally tripped me and I went sliding down the hill scrambling desperately back up to you, you and your beautiful delicate laughter. “I just couldn’t wait any longer,” I confessed, and you turned the most incredible shade of pink and told me I was being absurd. “So you were just drunk,” and you sped up, nearly disappearing behind all the tangled branches. I was chasing you, as always. No matter how much you run I will follow, keeping my ear to the ground to hear the pattern of your feet trampling my heart. 

I did the impossible: I caught you, mid-stride, just barely snatching your hand out of the air and pulling you back towards me, taking your tense form into my arms and trying to squeeze it soft again. “Please stop running away from me,” but my voice broke halfway through and only made it to “running” before I was crying, the last thing I ever wanted to do for you. It felt like you stopped breathing. All you said was, “Why?” I wasn’t sure where to start. I just held your face as gently as I could and looked at you, remembering every time you’ve ever smiled at me, the quiet surprise when I had kissed you the first time, the soft sound of your voice reading words more eloquent than I could ever attempt. “I’m in love with you, Kurapika, I thought you already knew.” The look in your eyes terrified me. You started with No, you started again with But, stammering vague thoughts of protest and telling me I wasn’t thinking straight and we’re just close friends and we can’t ever be anything more. I hadn’t really expected a different answer but it still stung. It was worth trying. You took a step back and looked around, a wild deer trying to decide if it would trust what seemed like a trap. I asked why you had kissed me back and told me you needed me and found me over and over just to touch me, hardly letting me hear your voice. You said you were weak and I couldn’t help laughing. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known. We were just standing there staring at each other and I reached for your hand and you watched me take it as though it wasn’t connected to your arm. “Can I please try again?” And your eyes went huge, so beautiful and scared, glued silently to my face as I stepped closer. I had to repeat myself twice before you jumped and demanded I stop messing around. “I’m being serious.” “How can that be?” I didn’t know what you meant. You started talking so fast about the horrible things you had done and would do, the statistical improbability of love out of friendship, all of the excuses you’d given yourself to wrap your heart up in tinfoil and throw it away. I couldn’t help myself, I had to stop hearing your voice. So I leaned down and kissed you again. You were so startled you fell down. “We shouldn’t,” “But don’t you want to?” And I sat down next to you and brushed the leaves from your hair and you didn’t flinch. You didn’t move. I asked again. “I don’t understand. Please, tell me why you look so afraid.” “It’s too dangerous to be together.” “But do you want to?” And then I learned that your voice could be even more beautiful as you whispered, “More than anything,” and pulled me towards you and we fell back onto the forest floor, just two nervous mouths connecting a pile of foolish nerves. 

You were still scared in the morning, trying to pull away again. I listened to you talk for hours, all the lies you tell yourself about what you deserve and all the misery folded up inside your perfect chest. There is a blade in your heart. There is a war drum beating a deafening throb in the back of your mind and yet you manage to be so soft around me as the chains clink at your ankles. You asked me if I was real and I asked you the same thing, hoping it might make you smile. It worked halfway. Your hands seemed so small and fragile as they reached for mine, checking to see if I would disappear when touched. I told you I loved you again and you were somehow still surprised to hear it. “That just can’t be true,” shaking your head, hypnotizing me with the morning light glinting off your earring swinging lightly by your neck. How can you possibly think you’re unlovable? I asked if we could go dancing when we got home and you gave me the same look I first earned by asking if I could read your favorite poems aloud in that quiet room. This time, your shock broke into laughter. “Why on earth—“ “It was the first thing that crossed my mind when I saw you again: so handsome and so sure of every step, I wished you were in my arms and everyone around us knew you were mine.” My face was burning; I knew I was being ridiculous. I’m just so in love with you I can’t make any sense. Your cheeks slowly filled with the warm color of your lips and you whispered that it seemed like a nice idea. I asked if I could kiss you and you let me and then you finally, finally, told me you never wanted me to stop. “You’ve caught me,” you were smiling, “I can’t imagine running from you anymore.”


End file.
